


circles

by pencilledhearts



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship, Gen, Protective Older Brothers, Protective Steve Harrington, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pencilledhearts/pseuds/pencilledhearts
Summary: The day that Steve finds Max drunk is one of the worst moments of his life.





	circles

The day that Steve finds Max drunk is one of the worst moments of his life.

It’s not just seeing her weave her way to his car, stumbling over her feet and words slurred in a way that is just unnatural for a fourteen year old, but also the way that it feels inevitable.

Because he’s spent enough time around these kids for them to pay attention to who he is and how he got to where he is. He’s been waiting and waiting for the other shoe to fall, for the final blow when he’s told that he can’t hang around the kids any more because, what the fuck dude, he’s not even related to a single one of them, why is he still here.

He’s spent enough time around these kids for this situation to be his fault.

He helps her into the car, makes sure she’s buckled in and doesn’t say a word until they’re cruising along the road with no one else in sight. The party that she’d been at fades far, far away in the rear view mirror and Steve tries to loosen his white knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“What the fuck, Red,” he says.

His words seem to hang in the air. Max looks over to him, reactions slightly dulled, a half smile on her face. Her fingers are tapping to a tune in her head.

“I was just having a good time,” she says.

“No. No you weren’t.” Steve shakes his head, can hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth and the unexpected anger he feels. “You were drinking. At a house party full of people older than you who should have known better. You were on your way to a night full of regret and mistakes, and the worst part is, you have no idea.”

The smile falls from Max’s face. She’s wearing make up that makes her look older than she is, old enough to fool any number of guys at the party which is more than Steve can bear to think about, but her mascara is smudged and her lipstick is faded.

“Do you have any idea what could have happened tonight? Do you even know-”

Steve pounds the wheel with one hand but doesn’t do anything else; he doesn’t want to frighten her, make her think she has to be afraid of him. He just wants her to understand.

“Who was that guy?” he asks.

Max mumbles a reply and he looks her dead in the eye until she rolls her eyes.

“He’s just a guy,” Max says. “I’m not with Lucas any more, what’s the big deal?”

“The deal,” Steve says, “is that he’s eighteen. He’s four years fucking older than you and he was about to stick his tongue down your throat.”

“So what,” Max says. She’s angry now, sobering up a little and bristling with outrage. “I can make my own decisions.”

“Not if this is what you decide,” says Steve. He wonders when he became her mom.

“You’re a hypocrite,” Max spits. “You had sex when you were my age. Hopper almost arrested you for drugs when you were fifteen! What, are you the only one allowed to do that? What makes you the exception, Harrington?”

“Who told you that?” Steve asks before breaking off, because, not important. “Right.”

He pulls over at the side of the road so he can concentrate. He needs full mental capacity for this conversation.

“Max, I was a screwed up kid. I still am. I had so much going on that my therapist had to go to therapy.”

“Really?” Max asks, sullen but curious.

“Well, no, I didn’t have a therapist. But that was kinda the problem. My dad doesn’t believe in talking about feelings and he’s the one with the money… Look, when I was your age, I was practically living on my own. I was angry at the world, and hateful and spiteful and I needed a way to not feel any more and so I got drunk and I did drugs and I watched my life spiral down the drain.”

Steve looks out of the window, follows a raindrop as it falls from the top to the bottom as he remembers the night and after night of is bad decisions, of trying to get away from his life, trying to get back at his parents, doing everything he could think of just so someone would come out and tell him, ‘stop it, I care’.

“I know you’re still sort of new in town but I know the others have told you about what I used to be like. Mike, at the very least. I was a douchebag. I bullied people, I made them feel bad about themselves and I enjoyed it because I was bringing people down to my level. And then I met Nancy and I started trying for the first time in my life and I realised what a shithead I was.

“I screwed up my grades. I never recovered from that. I use people for sex and friendship and then I tossed them away until I was left with nothing – to the point that when I ended up in hospital because I pissed of Jonathon of all people so much that he beat me up, no one came to visit. I almost got a criminal record several times and the only reason I didn’t was because my dad is rich.

“So I mean this when I say Max, please, don’t use me as an excuse for anything. You’re so smart and funny and goddamn likeable, even when you’ve had everything going against you, and you’ve got such an amazing future ahead of you. You can go far in life. I don’t want to be the one that drags you down.”

Max fiddles with the hem of her skirt – which is far too short, where did she even get a skirt that small – and doesn’t say anything for a moment. When she looks up, she’s crying.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I didn’t- this isn’t me.”

Steve pulls her in for a hug, the same way he has for Dustin and Will in the past, angry at himself. He doesn’t want to be the one making her cry.

He’s pretty sure that no one’s going to let him near these kids again when word of tonight gets out (he’s a bad influence, always has been and look what’s happened) but he’s going to do his dammedest to make up for it before that happens.

“It just hurts so much, all of the time,” she says, voice muffled by his jumper. “I miss him all the time and I can’t say anything because he was such a dick and he hurt so many people and he made my life miserable. I don’t even know why I miss him but I do and- and-”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, closing his eyes. He wishes that this was something real and tangible that he could hit with his bat, because that’s the only way he knows how to protect these kids. Nancy was always the one who was better with the words. Robin, even.

“I miss him too, you know,” he says after a moment.

Max huffs a laugh. “He gave you a concussion.”

“Trust me, I remember,” he says. It took months for him to be able to focus properly again, to be able to sleep through the night, for the ringing in his ears to stop. “But we went to school together. We were on the team together. He made my life miserable, and maybe he was one straw short of a haystack, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“He saved us all,” Max says.

“Yeah, he did. No matter what he did before that, he died doing the right thing. Look, Red, you can’t help feeling what you feel. It took me a good few years to learn that one, and it cost me my girlfriend in the process. You can miss him, and you can think he was a terrible person. They’re not mutually exclusive.”

Max wipes her tears and snot with the sleeve of her shirt. “It’s just too much sometimes. I just wanted to not feel it for a bit.”

Steve gives her a half smile. “That I can’t help with so much. But getting drunk with guys who are far too old for you isn’t the answer.”

“Yes, mom.”

“Shithead.”

They share a smile and the air between them seems a bit easier.

“Listen, what about this,” he says. “If you ever want to talk about this stuff, I’m here for you, okay? I’m not great at it but I know all about messed up feelings and I’m never going to judge you for it. Plus, I have a bat with nails in it and a big back yard and I promise you that that is a much better way to let your feelings out.”

“Really?” Max asks.

“Yeah, really.”

“Any time?”

“Whenever you need someone,” Steve promises. He’s never meant anything more.

He’s heard things about the Mayfield-Hargrove household and none of them good. If he could whisk Max away into a better home with the American dream family she deserves, he would do it, but he can’t so he’ll settle for just making her life easier in any way he can.

Like he did with the Byers, by helping them fix up their house after all the damage. The new cat he bought Dustin after the whole nightmare with Dart. Like the radio he bought for El, so that she and Mike could talk.

“Steve?” Max asks, voice small, bringing him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, squirt?” he asks.

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Not in my car you little-”

So he helps her out of the car and into the rain, holds her hair back as she throws up once, twice, three times onto the grass verge and by some unlucky person’s front gate. He gives her his jumper to cover up when she starts to shiver, laughs at the way that it reaches her kneels and the sleeves dangle long past the tips of her fingers, and tucks her back into the car.

He drives her back to her house and sees her in to her room – climbing in through her bedroom window. He’s not sure whether he’s horrified or proud.

“Any time,” is the last thing he says to her and he hopes that it sinks in.

Seeing Max drunk is one of the worst moments of his life; but knowing that maybe, hopefully, god permit, he can guide her past all of his mistakes and help her be better, help her find her own happier way through her trauma – well, maybe that’s one of the best.


End file.
